Green Line Walkability

First Last Mile Accessibility on the Green Line

The 2014 Accessibility Survey and video are part of the District Councils Collaborative of Saint Paul and Minneapolis’ (DCC) ongoing Last Mile to the Green Line Initiative, an effort to improve walkability and accessibility along the Green Line and the surrounding area. The initiative began in 2012, when the DCC, its member organizations, and interested groups conducted a corridor-wide survey of walking conditions along routes to light rail transit (LRT) stations. From the beginning, our goal was to create an accessible pedestrian environment. We soon learned that accessibility means “access for everyone” - not just those who walk. Over time, we realized that we needed to support an environment where facilities and systems made spaces and places available to everyone. That meant elevating the voices of people with disabilities in this conversation in a meaningful way. This lead to the creation of an Accessibility Documentary and corosponding Report. The Report will be available on this website soon! Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmt-IylByFs

Dale Street Pedestrian Demonstration Project

The District Councils Collaborative, along with Frogtown Neighborhood Association, Summit-University Planning Council, and with technical assistance from the Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation Design Center, has undertaken a project to improve the walkability and safety along Dale Street from Selby Ave. to Minnehaha Ave. in St. Paul. The Dale Street Walkability Project aims to make Dale Street a safer and friendlier place to walk, pedal, stroll, and wheel for people of all ages and abilities while leaving a legacy of community leadership on pedestrian issues and concerns. Funding for this project is provided by the Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.

Recommendations and implementation strategies are presented in the report and technical drawings here:

Dale Street Report Dale Street Technical Drawings

What is the Green Line Walkability Survey?

Transportation models forecast 40,000 weekday riders by 2030. Models also predict that 68% of all Green Line riders will be walking to their stations — in the case of the Dale Street Station it is 80% — and that riders may walk up to a half mile or more to reach their station.

Clearly, achieving Green Line ridership projections will depend on riders who walk to the stations, yet residents have identified many concerns about safety and the physical condition of the pedestrian realm.

In station area planning workshops, many residents talked about unfriendly pedestrian environments, missing sidewalks, poor lighting and unsafe street crossings. Problems such as these are especially prevalent in neighborhoods with a history of disinvestment and large numbers of people who are transit dependent. This creates an inequality in the pedestrian realm, making it more difficult for those with the greatest need, including the elderly, disabled, and families with children to access public transit.

The DCC undertook the Green Line Walkability Survey as a community-based initiative to develop and implement well-informed strategies to close this gap. Working closely with elected officials, public transportation staff, and nonprofit organizations with pedestrian and transit expertise, the DCC designed a survey with a four-fold purpose:

to motivate people to walk to their future light rail station and to engage them in a process to make improvements;

to gather on-the-ground, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, concrete feedback from residents about the walking environment;

to use data collected through the survey to inform and add detail to general plans for pedestrian realm improvements in station areas and throughout the corridor; and

to advance work with community members, public officials, and the private sector to establish priorities and implement improvements.